ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, October 30, 1996            TAG: 9610300021
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS
SOURCE: Associated Press

BOY SUSPENDED IN BEEPER BUST

Kim Hudson, the mother of Ryan Hudson, said her 5-year-old apparently took the beeper from a kitchen counter because he likes the noise it makes. A teacher saw Ryan with the beeper during the field trip Friday.

Hudson said she was shocked by the suspension. ``Ryan could have set the school on fire or sold drugs, and his punishment would have been the same,'' she said.

School rules forbid pupils from bringing beepers to school.

``No one thinks he brought it to school for illicit reasons,'' said Rosalynne Whitaker-Heck, a school system spokeswoman. ``But the fact is, he brought it, and disciplinary action had to be taken.''

The boy probably will be allowed to return to Kiln Creek Elementary School today, Whitaker-Heck said.

Recently, a 15-year-old Indianapolis girl was expelled for 10 days for carrying a Swiss Army knife to school to scrape resin from her violin strings, and an 11-year-old Columbia, S.C., girl was suspended for bringing a steak knife in her lunch box so she could cut her chicken.

In Ohio, a 13-year-old girl was suspended for 13 days for having Midol at school.

LENGTH: Short :   34 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. Ryan Hudson mourns his beeperless fate. color.